The Dream I Dreamed
by NastElilBuggr
Summary: The day after Shelby takes Beth home from the hospital, she makes a couple of phone calls. The conclusion to my series.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey everyone! Sorry it's been a while. I'm in college and school has this way of draining me of any inspiration and motivation. Imagine that. It was bad enough I couldn't even make my deadline of September 21 (start of Glee) to get this published, but two days late isn't bad I suppose. And let me tell you, I'm thrilled to be back. **

**But this is it; this is the end. Well, this is the first chapter of two because it was too long to be a one-shot, but with the conclusion of this story comes the conclusion of my Shelby series. The poor girl needs some closure. ****The next part is still just in my head, but with the right motivation (reviews? feedback? delightful writer/reader communication via ff.n? 0:D ) I hope to get it out and give all of you wonderful readers who have been following along (and, of course, any new ones that are more than welcome to join the sobfest that ended up being this series) some closure as well. :) **

* * *

Shelby Corcoran was aware of her tendency to think way too much about everything.

It was part of the reason she became extremely frustrated when she couldn't solve problems, which was something she was currently experiencing in trying to put together the baby mobile she had bought earlier that week. She had it assembled but for whatever reason she couldn't get it to spin like it was supposed to. It wasn't a good omen, she decided in frustration, throwing the colorful device back into its packaging on the floor and kicking it aside.

Apparently the noise from her small outburst startled the week-old baby in the crib at the end of her bed, and it was with a self-frustrated sigh that she stood from her seat on the edge of the mattress to walk over to check on Beth. The baby was whimpering, too little to really cry, and Shelby reached a hand down into the brand-new crib to stroke the soft skin of the newborn's head. From what she knew, Beth had been born three or four weeks early, which explained why she was so much smaller than the other babies had been in the hospital. After a few days of supervision and tests, doctors were able to assure Shelby that the little girl was perfectly healthy, much to her relief. When Rachel had been born, she had seemed so big in comparison to the calming baby in front of her, Shelby suddenly remembered, her brow furrowing slightly. But maybe that was because at the time, to Shelby, there had been nothing else in the room but Rachel. As for the sixteen years in between that moment and this one, it felt as though someone hit the fast-forward button on her life: all of the insignificant moments were there to see, but they were blurry and trivial compared to this moment right now.

The last week was a blur in particular. Since the Regionals competition last Saturday, Shelby felt like she had been running nonstop. Her mind had been working 20 hours a day, first trying to make a responsible decision about the abandoned infant at the hospital then thinking about everything a typical woman in her position has at least nine months to worry about, all the while dealing with finals at Carmel and preparing Glee Club for Nationals. But when she picked up the child from the hospital the afternoon before, she had no regrets, not even about her trip to see Principal Geoffrey Lancaster earlier that day. She had walked in with a pile of paperwork and dropped it haughtily on his desk, explaining that in the stack of folders was everything that the substitutes would need in order to give final exams to all of the students that hadn't graduated that Thursday night as well as the information her replacement Glee advisor (a list of potential candidates was provided) would need to guide the self-reliant group of teenagers to Nationals next month. He had been so shocked at her quasi-resignation that he couldn't even speak as she explained that for the first time in her life, she was putting her personal life before her work and he wasn't going to change her mind.

Even though she told him she would be back next school year to teach (she suspected that he would have passed out if she told him he also needed to find a replacement for the classes she taught, since she taught both vocal classes as well as the general music classes, something that couldn't often be done by one person in Lima, Ohio), the next three and a half months belonged to her and Beth. For the first time in a long time, Shelby was doing something for herself. The sweet baby that was relaxing at her new mother's gentle touch and soft reassurances was hers and only hers; Beth was something she always wanted but was never ready to have until now.

A week before, not only did Beth not exist in the world as an individual, she did not even exist in Shelby's mind. But since that moment her gaze found the nameless baby on the other side of the hospital glass, her world had turned upside down. She had very, very quickly gone from terminal bachelorette to a mother – no, a _mom_, she corrected with awe – and she had yet to wrap her mind around it.

Shelby did not love the little girl yet. She was mesmerized, grateful, and content, but love was still a way off, especially for someone like Shelby who had been alone and distrustful for so long. But in looking at Beth, so mild and pretty with her creamy skin and her surprisingly bright blue eyes, she felt like she was jumping off of a cliff: it was inevitable for the upward momentum – and the fear and excitement that accompanied it – to stop when the grip of gravity took her over and she would fall uncontrollably and tremendously to infinite depths. She just wasn't sure when she would hit that crest, but she didn't want to know. She was just eager to experience it.

In analyzing her feelings for Beth, Shelby was also stumped in trying to comprehend how she had come to love Rachel as much as she did. But love was something that is so illogical and uncontrollable that she was better off trying to learn how NASA built their spacecrafts piece by piece than trying to find some element of reason to it. One thing she _did _know was that her feelings for Rachel were only holding her back from giving Beth everything a child deserves from her mother. She had walked away physically from her biological daughter but not emotionally, and she was still holding onto something she knew very well wasn't doing her any good. What was that one important commandment that she should have been living her life by? Oh yes, _Thou shall not covet thy homosexuals' daughter_. It was closely associated with a couple other commandments that she had struggled to but successfully upheld throughout the years: _Thou shall not steal the fruit of thy loins _and _Honor thy bitch of a mother and aloof father. _

And because of that broken commandment, she was living with a stomachache that was haunting her relationship with Beth, a little girl with whom she would spend the rest of her life. And it was quite frustrating to watch her sleep in her crib and have her mind constantly invaded by thoughts of Rachel. It certainly wasn't fair to Beth.

It didn't seem fair to Rachel either that she had adopted a little girl so soon after they had met and she had essentially blown her off without a true explanation. God, she certainly had a way of screwing things up, she thought with a subtle grimace, her hands curling tightly around the crib's wooden rail. But Rachel did not yet know about her decision, and she had no desire to let Rachel find out the hard way about her mother's new, rightful daughter. She would be the one to tell Rachel. In fact, there was no one she wanted to tell more, and if it wasn't simply because the teenager was the most important person in her life and those with that label were usually the people with whom good news is shared, it was to relieve this burden of shame from her shoulders. Shelby was an honest person by nature and she felt like she was keeping this big secret from Rachel. That was not her intention.

She glanced over her shoulder at the clock. It was a quarter 'til 8 in the evening and if she hovered over Beth any longer, she knew more time would pass before she would realize it. Before too long, she needed to grow a spine and tell Rachel the truth. The resident cynic in her head that barraged her conscience with constant commentary reminded her that she was under no obligation to share her life with Rachel, but she wanted to. She had always wanted to. Just because she has settled on the decision that Rachel would be better off with her at a distance didn't mean that her desire to have a relationship with her daughter had completely perished.

But Beth would come first now. And she needed to set the record – as well as herself – straight on that.

The infant was finally asleep once more. Shelby was careful when she pulled her hands away from the frame of the crib, unwilling to jar the still child from her sleep. The last 24 hours had been quite difficult in that respect; even though the little girl's brain was still developing, she was probably cognizant of her new environment and the unfamiliar person hovering around her. In time, Beth would come to realize that this was her home and that this was a safe place, but meanwhile Shelby expected that she would endure more sleepless nights in which the child whined at every new sound. She didn't mind, really. After all these years of yearning for a child, she couldn't complain about such trivial things that were part of life.

Shelby carefully walked away from the slumbering baby, careful not to trip over the mobile packaging she had left on the bedroom floor, and grabbed her cell phone from her bedside table before slipping out of her room completely. By the time she had gotten to her living room (which had a few other packages and shopping bags of baby stuff that she had yet dealt with in spread out throughout the area), she had made up her mind that she was going to use this phone to call Rachel. Even if Beth slept through the night, she knew she wouldn't be able to rest until she put her racing mind and conscience at ease.

Tapping the phone against her empty palm, she took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she was about to do. Despite what Rachel probably thought considering the last couple of times they talked to each other, Shelby didn't want to hurt her. How many sleepless nights had she experienced in the last couple of months in which she stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out what could be done to make things happy for herself? She wanted Rachel but she couldn't have her. That was a fact. Ignoring that Rachel had two parents who loved her and ignoring how Shelby had been absent from her life until now, Rachel was 16 years old. Hell, she'd be an adult in less than two years; by then, she could be living on her own, going off to school somewhere, surrounded by friends and admirers alike. No matter if she was present in Rachel's life at all or not, Shelby was going to be a bystander anyway.

Not that she had a choice in the matter anymore. She had made the decision – the mature, responsible, stupid decision – to walk away and there was nothing she could do to change that now. On the bright side, considering the status of their relationship, she didn't have much to lose if Rachel did hate her for adopting Beth. She rolled her eyes at herself; any optimism she had was clearly as corrupted by her resident cynic as she was.

After getting a fresh pot of coffee brewing, she grabbed a strawberry yogurt and spoon from the kitchen and treaded back to the dining room where she plopped down in her favorite chair, putting the Blackberry to the side for a moment. There was only just enough room for her forearms as she ate her pathetic meal since most of her table looked like a baby bomb exploded over it. Printouts that discussed the pros and cons of breast milk over formula, over a half dozen unread baby books and a couple others that had various Post-its with notes sticking out of them, receipts for the dozens of purchases she had made in the last week (such as baby clothes, diapers, a car seat, that shitty mobile she couldn't get to work, and of course, breast milk since she was convinced it was worthwhile based on her research), adoption papers, and finances covered most of her tabletop. Between the various piles were cold coffee mugs, half of which were leaving coffee rings on her tablecloth, and dirty plates documenting her various meals from throughout her stressful week. While she normally would have been bothered with the mess, she was too preoccupied to give a damn. She would worry about it later, at the very least when she was done putting her relationship with Rachel on the line.

Navigating the Blackberry with one finger, she pulled up Rachel's contact information but didn't dial immediately, needing one last moment of stillness and sameness before she tossed shit into the fan. Putting down her finished yogurt, she sat back in her chair, crossed her legs in front of her and fiddled with the frayed knees of her jeans. She brooded for a moment about how Rachel would never know her as anything other than the nicely dressed, lonely career woman. It was such a little thought, even a little vain, but once it crossed her mind it continued to evolve: it had been years since anyone had seen anything but Coach Corcoran. Even when she had men or guests over, no matter how much she tried she couldn't stop being all-business all of the time and it made her disheartened. Part of her had hoped that she could come to know her daughter enough that she would have someone she could be comfortable with for once. But in a curious twist of fate – or rather, a scratch of a pen against a brand-new contract – she now had a different daughter who would come to know her for exactly the woman she was.

Had her internal monologue wanted to run off on a tangent, she would have pondered at length about the ease and nuttiness of people signing their babies away and filling out papers to get one of their own, but that would have been both draining to philosophize on and demoralizing as she had done both in her life. Not to mention, at that moment she had a phone call to make.

Hitting the call button and pulling her phone to her ear, her eyes shut tightly in apprehension as she heard the digital ringing in her ear. She was a bit annoyed with herself; she didn't used to be so scared, but back before she saw a beautiful young lady croon Barbra Streisand at a Sectionals performance there was little to make her nervous. Now she was second-guessing herself at every turn about making the right decisions that before had come so naturally to her. And, embarrassing as it was, that worry-wart that had recently made itself comfy next to her internal pessimist was pleading for Rachel to not pick up so she wouldn't have to disappoint the girl yet again.

"_Hello?"_

Surprisingly, it was nice to hear Rachel's voice, despite her initial fears. She felt herself loosen up slightly.

"Hi baby, it's—" She stopped herself, frowning at how she had almost slipped and introduced herself as her mom. It was something she expected out of Rachel, not herself. Perhaps she could compromise and be very politically correct about it: _It's your biological, surrogate mother who, by all intents and purposes, has basically shown that she doesn't want you. _"It's Shelby."

"_Oh hi Shelby! Can you hold on for a moment?"_

"I—… Sure," she said, wondering why being put on hold at that critical moment shocked her at all. Somehow Rachel always violated her expectations just enough that she was pulled from relentlessness of her own mind. On the other end of the line, she could hear clinking and shuffling around of what sounded like more than one person. She felt self-conscious and when Rachel announced her return she rushed out, "Is this a bad time? I could call back or somethi—"

"_No, it's perfectly fine! My dads and I were just cleaning up our dinner."_

"Oh, okay. Good."

"_Shelby, are you okay? You sound different." _Shelby was about to respond when she heard a muffled voice of one of the Berry men on the other end talking to Rachel, and she tried to decipher what was being said despite the fact that Rachel clearly covered the mouthpiece with her hand. _"Papa wants to know if you're drunk."_

"What? No, I'm not drunk!" It didn't matter that the last time she randomly reached out to Rachel she had been smashed nearly to the point of drooling, giving her dads a good reason to ask— if she were the same woman she was 17 years ago, she would have had Rachel tell her dad where he could stick his tactless nosiness. But she wouldn't have her daughter to tell her father such a thing simply for the sake of her pride, especially since the Berry men weren't her friends anymore and it would be just as rude as asking her about her alcohol intake. "I just haven't been sleeping much."

"_She's just tired, Papa! …No, I don't know what why she called. Are you going to let me find out or are you going to keep standing there?"_

At this point, Shelby's nervousness was being suppressed upon hearing her daughter speak so casually, and while she was slightly amused, the aching was still present in her gut. Rachel was about two seconds away from asking her why she called. She decided to save her the trouble. "I just need to tell you something. Do you have a few minutes? You're not busy are you?"

"_No. We were just going to watch this movie on Lifetime about this woman who finds out that her husband is cheating on her with his best friend so she—"_

"Rachel."

"_Oh, sorry. Anyway, Daddy can TiVo it. Go on Papa, I'll put everything else away." _Shelby heard the deep voice of Thomas Berry fade away in the background before it became silent, and she suspected that Rachel was waiting for her to speak next. But the words weren't coming out. A good twenty seconds stretched before finally Rachel spoke up in a lower, more emotive tone, "_What did you want to tell me?"_

"Just that…" Shelby sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead as she deliberated her words. She had so much she wanted to say, and at that moment nothing seemed right, even the most obvious choices. In the end, she could be man enough to admit that she chickened out at that moment. "Just that I wish you had won at Regionals."

"_Oh,"_ Rachel said, her voice communicating wished she could see her face, but no doubt if she had to look in Rachel's eyes she would feel worse than she already did. _"Well, I guess in the end the better team won. Good luck at Nationals."_

She sounded bitter. Shelby couldn't blame her, really. But she was going to try to be candid, even if it continued to upset the teen. "I'm not going to Nationals. I quit."

"_You…what?"_

"I quit Glee."

"_But…you can't quit Glee! You're the best! Talent like yours shouldn't be wasted!"_

Shelby sat quietly while Rachel wrapped her mind around the news. She had already explained how she felt about Glee back at the competition, among other things, and she suspected that Rachel hadn't taken her seriously. But Rachel was too young and full of life to understand how weary she was becoming of the monotony, demand and hollowness of show choir after so many years of both participation as well as advisory.

In a moment of sad remembrance, she was reminded once again that Rachel never came to know her very well. She was the chic, nationally ranked coach of Vocal Adrenaline who had years previously fostered an embryo, but beyond that Rachel didn't know her. She probably could not have imagined the woman she had known so briefly sitting in the disaster zone that was currently her house, or have pictured in her mind the loose-fitting jeans or the faded "It's the economy, stupid" t-shirt she was wearing, or even have known what Shelby looked like without makeup or with her hair thrown up in a messy ponytail. Rachel didn't know that her favorite color was green, that she knew how to ride a unicycle, or how she hated bananas. And she probably had no idea how badly Shelby wanted to be a mother. To have a daughter.

"I'm sorry Rachel," she said to a girl she had given birth to but could never have. "It was just something I needed to do. But that's not why I called." If Rachel was upset over her quitting her job as lead of the glee club that had just beaten her small team at Regionals, then she could only imagine how well this next bit of news would go over. "I adopted your friend's baby."

Shelby's eyes were crammed shut, her bare toes curling into the carpet as she waited for the Rachel to start screaming. But all Shelby heard was the high-pitched clinking of silverware being showered across Rachel's kitchen, no doubt from the girl's dismayed clutches, in the otherwise deafening silence.

"_No."_

That word, that utterance, was so simple, but it carried the heavy weight of their terrible relationship with it. Up to this point, Rachel had been relatively patient and calm, even in the worst moments, and judging by the sound of that one syllable Shelby was certain she was lucky to have received such generosity from the young diva.

"_No. You can't adopt Quinn's baby. You just can't."_

"It's done. I took her home yesterday."

"_But why? Why did you have to pick _her_? Why now? Why are you doing this to me?"_

As Rachel's questions became more and more hysterical, Shelby sighed in frustration. She had already known that she shouldn't expect Rachel to be happy for her, but it didn't stop her from wanting it and being disappointed that she had been right in her pessimism.

"_I can't believe you would do this to me."_

"This isn't about you," Shelby responded coldly, annoyed.

"_Then what is it about?" _the teenager snappily rejoined.

Her lips were pursed and her nostrils were flaring, but she realized she wasn't mad at Rachel. Out of all the things she had to be mad about in her life, the way Rachel was as a person, her thoughts and her feelings, were not among them. She couldn't say the same for herself. "This is about me. I'm almost 40 years old. I'm sick of the fact that the only substantial things I can claim as my own are goddamn trophies and _titles_, as if that's supposed to mean anything to me."

"_S-so you just went and got some baby, like it's going to make everything better?"_

"You can't just _get_ a baby, Rachel," Shelby said. "It's not like you can wake up one morning with the desire to want a kid and pick one up at the local baby store. It doesn't work like that. It's a long legal process that involves counseling, evaluation regarding the adopters' health, background, and finances, and homestudies to make sure that they're fit to be parents. It can take months, and in some cases years."

"_And you've done all of that?"_

"A long time ago. I just…wasn't ready then. I am now."

"_But I don't understand."_

Shelby sighed once more, perfectly aware of the fact that Rachel couldn't understand because there was so much Shelby couldn't muster up the nerve to explain. Rachel was a smart enough girl to realize that loneliness wasn't enough of a drive to jump through so many complicated hoops. But this phone call was meant to allow Shelby to tell her the truth, or at least as much as was necessary so Rachel could accept her choice.

"Rachel, honey, you need to know something," she said, listening to the sound of Rachel's unsteady breathing through the earpiece. She took a deep breath of her own before she made the plunge. "A few years back I started getting sick. It started out as simple back aches, but it wasn't long before I was experiencing other problems too, like heavy, agonizing periods and pain during intercourse." She was too old to be embarrassed about that but it wasn't easy telling her daughter something so incredibly personal. "Doctors called the tumors growing in my uterus 'fibroids.' By the time they had figured out what was wrong with me, surgery was the only option."

"_So you're saying it's difficult for you to have any more kids? So you're just giving up?"_

"It's not difficult, Rachel, it's impossible. I had to have a hysterectomy. You're it for me, babe."

It was with an uncontrollable desperation that she wished she could know what Rachel was thinking in that moment.

"_Then…then why aren't I good enough?"_

"Oh sweetie," Shelby murmured, her heart throbbing with shame upon hearing the emotion Rachel's voice held. She didn't want Rachel to blame or think less of herself, not when Shelby was the one responsible for the many shortcomings in her own life. But the fact was, Rachel had a point: She wasn't good enough for her. And because Shelby had not fought for her when she had the chance and when it mattered most, it was really was too late for them. "I need you to understand some things. Being tired of Glee wasn't the only reason I had to turn down your request to come teach at your school. I've spent most of your life watching you grow up from a distance, and to see you an hour or two a day and never touch you or truly have you in my life would have driven me insane. I don't know if you realize how wonderful I think you are. I couldn't have imagined anyone better, and I've spent years thinking all about what kind of girl you would grow up to be. If Beth grows up to be half as beautiful and smart and talented as you, I'll feel like the luckiest person in the world."

"_You named her Beth."_ It was a statement, not a question, and Shelby wished she knew what it meant.

"Yeah, I did," Shelby stated. Despite her confessions, their situation hadn't changed; Shelby wondered if Rachel, with all of the knowledge that she had been hiding from her up until now, was now plagued with the quandary regarding their relationship that had tortured her own mind for so long. She exhaled miserably. "I know you probably don't understand why I adopted Quinn's baby, but it was important to me that you know the truth. And I hope you don't hold anything against her, because in a way" — a very convoluted way — "she's your sister."

She heard soft sniffles and thick exhalations, and with that Shelby knew that Rachel was crying. It killed her to listen to it and to know that she was the cause of it. It was just more confirmation that Rachel was better off without her, and no doubt Rachel was figuring that out at that moment as well.

"I'll let you go. I've got to call my folks now and tell them the, um, _happy_ news."

"_I'm sure they'll be thrilled for you."_

She scoffed softly, mumbling, "I wish."

Their conversation became quiet once more, and without anything left to say Shelby knew that sitting there, holding onto the connection to her daughter by staying on the line, was just selfish. She felt like she did the last time she was about to say goodbye, but this time there was no song to sing and no bittersweet embrace. This time it was really just goodbye.

What could she say? "See you later alligator"? "Don't be a stranger"? "Talk to you soon"? No, of course she couldn't. But she did the best that she could without really saying farewell or admitting this may be the last time for a long time. "I hope you have a good night. Say hello to your fathers for me."

"_I will. Good night, Shelby."_

"Good night," she whispered.

The call ended.


	2. Chapter 2

**I loved how philosphical the reviews were. It was truly a compliment that you all were so engrossed into this as I have been! Not to mention I found the various perspectives intriguing: some say Shelby is selfish, some say she's not at all; others say she's hard and some don't think that at all. I don't know what your opinion of Shelby will be after this, but I would love for you to share. After all, this project, this Shelby series, has taken up months of my life so if nothing else your feedback would be rewarding for that reason :) **

**Can you believe this is it? **

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Shelby wasn't sure where the world went while she had been talking to Rachel, but the moment she hung up it seemed to come crashing back upon her once more in a tremendous wave of sensation. Noises seemed louder, the kitchen lights seemed obnoxiously bright, and the smell of the freshly brewed coffee was so strong it burned her nose. But that might also have been because Shelby made her coffee strong.

Leaning against the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker, she dropped a sugar cube into the steaming, dark depths and watched as it vanished, knowing that if she thought about it too much in this state of mind she would have found a way to make it a metaphor for her own life. It was how she handled her excess of drama, and she thought that the people in her life ought to be grateful that she internalized it lest she drive them all crazy. When she was young, she wasn't so good at keeping herself contained, but over time the extroversion that should have made her the star of the stage spoiled and left her rather sour and rotten. Remembering how Will Schuester told her that Rachel was dramatic like she was, she hoped that it didn't mean that Rachel was on the same path that she had taken, which inevitably leads to cynicism and bitterness. Sometimes despair. And occasional indiscriminate sex.

Popping a couple cubes into her mouth and grabbing her coffee mug and cell phone, she chewed them calmly as she made her way over to the sectional in her living room and found a spot amidst the mess to slump in to. She was hoping that the sugar would metabolize in time for her looming chat with her parents, giving her the edge she'd need in order to survive the call.

But she wasn't nervous, not like she had been before. While a conversation with Rachel required fortitude and composure, a conversation with her mother demanded rock-hard balls. Metaphorically, hers were hiding, unwilling to come back out in the open after the stress she had just endured, but with a few more sips of her coffee she'd get back to normal. Stress was something she could handle.

The thing about her parents wasn't that they were bad people per se; they just lived their lives very differently than Shelby did. Her mother, for instance, was one of those people who was typically very opinionated but not always educated regarding the things about which she had an opinion. Her habits of judging people based on external factors rather than their internal conditions often irritated Shelby, who was very much the opposite. (That was the reason she had eventually come to forgive Jesse for his behavior toward Rachel and her glee club, because while he acted like a dick, she knew that he was genuinely a good person who was prone to make bad decisions like everyone else. In time, she even came to appreciate how much he went out of his way to earn back her trust. Not many people would have bothered, not when they were so close to being able to leave everything behind and move away like he was.) Her father, on the other hand, was distant and distracted by nature. His care had always been first and foremost his well-paying corporate job, and even in his retirement his focus had hardly changed. Shelby had trouble imagining them suddenly acting out of character and caring deeply about her thoughts and feelings simply because she was announcing to them that they had a new grandchild, especially when adopting a child could potentially give the wrong impression to outsiders who looked up to the Corcoran family as the ideal. And_ that _would be the worst tragedy ever, Shelby thought contemptuously.

She found her parents' home phone number in her contact list and mused about how she should probably have their number memorized or put them on speed dial or something. Once again, the sound of her voice in her head mixed with the ringing she heard and it chanted, _Don'tpickupdon'tpickupdon'tpickup... _so that when the third ring came and went she felt home free, awaiting one of her favorite sounds in the world: _"Thank you for calling David and Janet Corcoran, we're not home right now so leave your name and number—"_

"_Corcoran residence, Janet speaking."_

Fuck.

"Hi, Ma."

"_Shelby?" _her mother's voice questioned. She sounded exactly the same since the last time her daughter had talked to her, which was months before._ "Calling _us_? Well, aren't we just the luckiest people in the world to earn a phone call from our oldest child?" _The sarcasm certainly wasn't lost on Shelby, who resisted the urge to say immaturely, "Well you never call me either!"

"You sure are," she said instead, which wasn't much better.

"_I feel like I should be running throughout the neighborhood, announcing this momentous event. Shelby Corcoran, calling her humble parents!" _Shelby rolled her eyes. She was never so ignorant to assume that her gift for drama had been a unique trait; she just felt that she had more class. _"I swear, I know more about you from the articles that people send me about that silly glee club of yours."_

There was something kind of cathartic in witnessing people live up to her expectations of them, Shelby thought blandly. And she expected nothing less of her mother than to criticize her hard work and overlook her many impressive accomplishments.

"Yes, well, I have good news for you."

"_You've finally met a man?"_ This wasn't sarcasm. _"It's about time! I've been worried about you, wondering if you'd ever find anyone. What's his name? What does he do? How long do you plan on keeping him from your dear mother?"_

Shelby sighed, using the box of Huggies by her elbow as a table for her coffee cup, and rubbed her eyes with her newly free hand. Her mother had this ability to cause headaches, and she hoped she could head this one off before it became too strong. "Ma, I don't know how many times I need to tell you that I don't need a man to be happy."

"_Oh please, I can see past that sham of yours. I'm not as quick to forget as you about how you let a perfectly nice guy get away."_

"Wait, you mean Scott?"

"_Of course I do. You were to be married after all, and surprise, surprise! You let it all fall apart."_

"The man cheated on me, Ma!" Shelby reminded her crossly.

"_And what did you do that pushed him to that?"_

"I had my uterus ripped out by doctors," Shelby growled, furious that her mother was trying to make her responsible for the relationship that failed seven years before. "Apparently Scott didn't like his sperm committing suicide in vain."

"_Quit making excuses, Shelby."_

"Do you want to know why I called or not?" she snapped, exasperated.

"_I already know about that…that _thing _your students won, if that's the reason."_

As if she'd waste her time trying to make her mother proud with that. "No, that's not the reason. Mom, I've adopted a little baby girl."

"…_I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood you. It sounded like you said you adopted a baby."_

"I did." Was her mother _seriously_ playing this game with her? She wouldn't allow herself to be discouraged. "Her name is Beth and—"

"_Oh come on, Shelby, who are you kidding?" _Janet asked, her inclination practically mocking. "_Do you honestly believe that bringing home someone else's baby is going to make everything better?" _

Shelby's pulse was pounding so loudly in her ears that she wondered if maybe, just maybe, she was completely hearing her mother wrong. Despite the fact that Janet Corcoran's question was very similar to Rachel's, her mother's disdain was immeasurably worse than Rachel's justifiable resentment.

"_You're being really delusional. Really, as if bringing home some random child will complete you or some silly idea like that."_

Shelby was starting to get so angry that she was beginning to feel the beating of her heart throughout her body, and despite the rush of adrenaline that was filtering through her veins she felt herself shutting down; a defense mechanism that existed not for herself, but for other people against the darkness inside of her."You don't know what you're talking about," she said coldly.

"_Of course I do! You wasted your youth chasing a fantasy, and all that time you were in New York failing to make anything of yourself you could have been making a family. Before you knew it you were in your thirties and your biological clock had run out. And now you are trying to fix your mistakes."_

"They weren't mistakes!"

"_What's a mistake is you thinking you'll ever have anything special with this baby. There's a bond between a mother and the child she carried that creates a level of connection and understanding that you won't ever get with that infant."_

"You're wrong, Ma!"

"_Oh, and what would you know about it?" _her mother said testily, driving Shelby over the edge.

"I _have_ a daughter, and we don't have that connection!" she shouted before she could control herself. As silence met her, Shelby felt like a comic-strip character: her body went rigid in her seat, her eyes widened drastically, and her mouth dropped open in shock at her confession. "Oh shit."

"_WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?" _

She had just spewed stinky, chunky word vomit out into the world, and no matter how much she wanted to scoop it back into her mouth she could never make it go away. Rachel was a 17-year secret that Shelby never intended on sharing with her parents, who she knew would react like…well, like Janet Corcoran was acting now.

"_YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER? HOW DARE YOU KEEP THIS FROM ME!"_

"Come on, Ma," Shelby said evenly, accepting that the rabid, soaking-wet, underfed cat had found its way out of the bag whether she liked it or not. She may as well work it to her benefit. "I thought we had a connection. You're telling me that for 16 years this genetically granted sense of understanding of my life has never indicated that I've had a child?"

Shelby could hear her mother's heavy, furious breathing on the other end and felt a swell of pleasure fill her at the speechlessness that she induced. But of course, as she always did, Janet found a way to pop it when she suddenly laughed and said condescendingly, "_Oh, I know what this is about. This is all some joke, isn't it? Another act by you for our attention! You used to do that all the time_ _when you were a child. This is so predictable of you." _

"There's no act here, Mother. Her name is Rachel and she's _just_ like me." It felt good having emphasized the latter point, something that was sure to drive Janet Corcoran up the wall.

"_I don't believe this…"_

"It's not like I made an effort to keep it a big secret," Shelby informed her scathingly. "The few times we talked on the phone during my pregnancy I would drop big hints about how I was always feeling sick and how I was so lethargic and emotional—"

"_Oh, as if I—"_ Janet interjected, but Shelby was far past done letting her mom be alpha bitch.

"—or how you looked into my eyes two weeks after I had given birth to a little girl I couldn't keep and didn't notice how much of a _wreck _I was—"

"_Really, like I—"_

"—and all of these years, instead of asking me why I was pulling away, you gave me constant shit and pushed me further! So frankly, I don't give a damn what you think about my relationship with Beth. It's your loss that you don't want to share this with me, not mine."

"_Just wait until your father hears about this…"_

"What is he going to do? _Ignore _me? God forbid!"

"_You had better start showing some respect—"_

"Oh, shut up Mother. I'm done here." Shelby wasn't the type of person who liked to hang up the phone on someone, but she did it this time with great pride. Once her mother hit the point of clichés there was no point in trying to talk to her anyway, assuming that she was stupid enough to want to try. She tossed the phone aside so it landed face-down on the throw pillow next to her and took a deep, calming breath, her hand reaching out for the mug of cooling coffee that she trusted to soothe her nerves.

This time it wasn't loud or bright as the world filled in around her. She wasn't suffering from an onslaught of guilt or doubt. She had no regrets. But now she felt empty. She had said goodbye at the end of the first conversation and didn't bother with the second. The only people with whom she had chosen to share her fantastic news both felt like parts of her past now, and the world seemed worse because of it.

Thinking about Beth in the other room, she wondered what their future would be like— Would things be painful and strained like her relationship with Rachel or would there be contempt and distance between them like she had with her parents? For a moment, she was frightened that she would be little better to Beth than she had been to Rachel or than her mother had been to her; after all, what other examples or experiences had she had in her 39 years? It left her feeling insecure for a while, until she remembered that she knew exactly how she wanted to be with Beth: She would give that little girl everything she hadn't been given and she would be everything that she was never able to be for Rachel. Beth would be greatly loved, and knowing that gave Shelby confidence.

Pushing aside a small pile of brand-new baby onesies on the side of the coffee table, she put her feet up on the cleared space and sunk farther into her couch. She was going to be waiting a little bit, so if she was going to be moping for a while she may as well be comfortable: she estimated that her mother would need about ten minutes to shriek unintelligibly to her dad about the steaming handful of news that Shelby had just flung in her face, then another ten minutes for her to call Julie and rant hysterically about everything she had found out. Shelby looked at the clock and gave it 'til about 9:30 until her sister would be calling her. What could be more fun than ending her evening by getting lectured and patronized by her little sister? She was ready to pass out from giddy excitement, she thought sardonically.

Knowing her mother, the woman wouldn't sleep at all tonight due to agitation. It was a trait that Shelby had inherited; the inability to shut off her mind from the downpour of thoughts that more often than not swamped there and left her wading waist-deep and lost amidst the messes of life. The petty part of Shelby, the little girl in her that was never properly nurtured and instead was hidden away next to the darkness inside, was glad that her mother would be suffering; it was a taste of the sullenness that Shelby constantly experienced in her life. But the grown woman that Shelby was felt shame for this, for no one should have to feel the angst that she so often felt inside. It was part of the reason she had never shared the story of Rachel with her loved ones, for in many ways it was an unnecessary burden for anyone else to carry. There was no fixing it, after all. She had a daughter who already had two good parents. It was as simple as that.

But that was done. She had Beth now, and she would learn to find total contentment in her new daughter, even though a small part of her would naturally still want to be part of Rachel's life. Shelby heaved a sigh and buried her face in a hand as she thought about the loss Beth's grandmother was experiencing in deciding not to embrace the newest member of her family. She had a good perspective of what it was like to know that there was someone out there who was a part of her family and to choose to ignore that child, for she spent the first 16 years of Rachel's life staying away. She was angry at Janet for making that mistake; something Shelby knew for certain was regrettable. If only her mother would talk _to_ her instead of _at _her then she could communicate this important life lesson she knew too well, but Shelby wasn't any more capable of changing Janet Corcoran than the reverse.

The first thought that ran through her mind when the sound of "Bohemian Rhapsody" filled her still living room was that she needed to change her ringtone. The second thought she had was that since it had only been a couple minutes since she hung up on Mother Dearest that Janet, in the middle of her hissy fit, had decided she couldn't stand the idea of being hung up on and wanted to have the last word. Well, screw that. Grabbing the phone from the cushion next to her and hitting the green button before the ringing could wake her slumbering baby, she barked into the mouthpiece exasperatedly, "_What_?"

"_Hi,_" said a small, anxious voice from the other end of the line that most definitely didn't belong to Janet Corcoran. In her shock, Shelby's feet fell off the corner of their perch and she nearly fell forward off of the couch.

"Rachel!" Her mind felt blank at the realization that it was indeed her teenage daughter, about whom Shelby had been quite certain she had ruined any chance of talking to again in the foreseeable future. Since she apparently hadn't messed up their relationship by adopting a baby from someone whose name alone greatly upset Rachel, at least she had been able to foolishly finish the job by answering her phone call so rudely. "I'm so sorry! I thought you were my mother!"

"_I take it your conversation didn't go so well."_

"About as well as expected," Shelby admitted. Her brow furrowed while she stood up, her mind trying to comprehend why Rachel would call her back. She couldn't fathom it. "Is there something wrong?"

"_No, nothing is wrong,"_ Rachel said, but her voice was still subdued in a way that made Shelby's stomach clench guiltily. It wasn't simply because she had answered the phone like a cave person and she knew it.

She thought back to the first time they spoke, when Shelby first realized that she was making a mistake by trying to intrude on Rachel's life as though she had some right to be there. Then she had walked away, neither truly a hero nor a coward, and tried to make sense of it all. To this day she had yet to accomplish that, for it turned out that having an illegitimate daughter was more complicated than even Shelby, in her incessant deliberations, anticipated, because emotions were goading her good judgment and her desires to clash in a tussle that left her befuddled and dazed. She was still so confused, so it went without saying that because of it Rachel was too. That was the last thing she wanted at this point, especially with Beth in the picture.

"So…you're okay?" Shelby asked apprehensively, feeling stupid. She was conscious that she was very awful at this mothering thing; she hoped that in the time it took Beth to learn how to talk she would be able to as well.

Rachel didn't answer her. Instead, she suddenly blurted, _"I know why she's named Beth."_

Shelby's tense, concerned expression vanished in her surprise. Whatever she was expecting from the girl, it wasn't that. She had no idea how to respond.

"_I remember how much you like those sorts of things," _Rachel continued quickly, her tone indicating she was just as nervous as her mother._ "I thought you'd want to know."_

"Y-yes," Shelby said, shaking herself from her stupor. "I would. A lot."

"_You could come over this weekend for dinner if you want. I could tell you all about it then."_

"Oh Rachel," Shelby murmured, her heart and her mind pounding at the idea for completely different reasons. "I don't know, your dads—"

"_It was their idea."_

"…It was?"

Shelby didn't understand. For years, there were only two things truly standing in her way from knowing her daughter, and their names were Thomas and Ephraim Berry. They designed the contract that prohibited her from contacting the child that was truly half hers, they stalled even her most desperate attempts to see Rachel even when the girl was too young to comprehend who she was, and when Shelby violated her agreement in spite of these two men, they continued to plague Shelby and her relationship with Rachel, if not physically then symbolically. Now, out of the blue, she's been invited over to her daughter's home – the one she had never even stepped foot in before – at her fathers' request?

"_Yes. They want to have some sort of belated Mother's Day-slash-baby shower for you and the baby. Daddy really does throw a wonderful theme party. Like for Valentine's Day, he decorated our entire house with hearts and left lovely poems for us to find and dressed us all up in pink, which isn't a problem for me but…"_

As Rachel continued to ramble, Shelby admittedly tuned her out in order to think. Shelby's overactive mind, an impressive metaphor machine, flashed back to her college dorm room and the ancient television set in it that was so shitty that the picture would often go fuzzy and the images would rotate out of place; if she hit it just right the picture would right itself and it would work perfectly for stretch of time. Shelby suddenly felt like she was that TV, and when Rachel informed her that her dads weren't against her presence, it was if someone had knocked her upside the head, making her perception of the world suddenly clear and straight. _Everything _in her relationship with Rachel came down to the fact that she couldn't or shouldn't be with her because of her dads. She never had any illusions that the Berry men were oblivious to her emotional attachment to their little girl; in fact, they clearly had been prepared for it long before they chose her to be their surrogate. The contract was an 18-year guarantee that she would stay out of the way for fear that she would step in and win away Rachel's affections, and Rachel admitted it herself that the men were unhappy Shelby appeared before their time was up. When Shelby had gone to the Berry residence a month before to apologize to Rachel in person about the egging incident, Ephraim's uneasiness at her presence was palpable enough, despite his attempts to ease the discomfort by recalling their better days together. She hadn't been sure what to think when he had told her that he and Tom were grateful to her, not just for giving them Rachel in the first place but also for not stealing her away when she had the chance; obviously, their thanks didn't extend beyond that, for despite their past camaraderie they had allowed Shelby to walk away with a broken heart. And now, all of the sudden, they were throwing her a party? What gives?

She looked down at the box of diapers that her coffee mug was rested upon and knew the answer. For the first time in 16 years, the men didn't need to worry about Shelby robbing them of their little girl, for Shelby now had one of her own to whom she would go home. It was paradoxical that Beth was the key to a relationship with Rachel. Well, assuming Rachel even wanted one anymore.

As Rachel babbled on about her fathers' enthusiasm for holidays, Shelby wondered how the girl felt about passing on her dads' invitation. Surely it wasn't easy for her to pretend like everything was hunky-dory when it really wasn't.

"Rachel," Shelby said abruptly, interrupting the girl as she described the singing Cupid that her dad had sent to her classroom on Valentine's Day and how flat the man's voice was. "How do you feel about this?"

"_What do you mean?"_

"Do you want us to come over?" Shelby asked bluntly. She felt that with this question, this foolish inquiry that was putting everything at stake, the bottom was going to fall out at any minute. "I-it's just, I know things haven't worked out between us like you probably expected – I know it hasn't for me – and I don't want to make things harder for you if you…well, if you don't want to see me anymore."

"_Do you not want to come? Is that why you're asking?"_

"No! No, I… I really want to."

It was quiet for a moment, and Shelby held the phone to her ear in a tight grip, waiting with bated breath.

"_Me too," _Rachel softly confessed.

Shelby felt a smile spread across her features. She wondered if Rachel's sensitive hearing could detect it in her voice. "Okay then."

"_So…is Saturday good?"_

"Saturday's perfect."

"_Daddy says come over as early as you want, and don't bother bringing anything but…Beth." _

Shelby felt a swell of gladness, grateful that, despite the hesitancy in Rachel's voice at her quasi-sister's name, the teenager was clearly trying to be amenable. She decided right then that she was going to make sure that Rachel would never regret this. She was done being a disappointment.

"I'll see you then. Sorry, _we _will see you then. That's going to take some getting used to."

She heard Rachel give a small laugh that made her heart jump a little. _"Good night, Shelby."_

"Good night, babe."

She heard the phone disconnect, and it was with a strange new feeling that she put the Blackberry into her jeans' pocket. It was the first time in years that the hole in her heart wasn't throbbing. Her family knew the truth – Beth was no longer a dirty secret – and even the worst parts of the evening didn't seem so bad anymore. Now, with each step she made towards her bedroom and the baby inside of it, she felt like it was a step closer to home. It was something she had never truly experienced before.

As Shelby carefully approached the crib, she saw that the baby was deeply asleep. She wanted to leave her be, but a strong desire to hold her overtook her and she carefully cradled the infant's head and body as she lifted her to her chest. Thankfully, Beth did not stir, and Shelby smiled warmly down to her daughter.

"I know I might be thinking way too much into this," she whispered to her, her eyes moving over the little girl who was becoming ever-more perfect with each moment Shelby looked at her. Her dark gaze moved away from the slumbering child, the daughter with whom she would spend the rest of her life, and focused on the little blue stuffed elephant on her bedside table momentarily before it returned to her baby. "But I think that maybe…just maybe…we might have a family."

* * *

**"And they lived happily ever after!" Doesn't that unrealistic, untrue cliche sound so nice in the end? **

**While this is the conclusion to my series, I have considered writing a sequel comprised of one-shots with the characters, just for fun. Let me know if that is something you'd be interested in.**

**So...what did you think? Janet was sort of a bitch, wasn't she? Good thing Shelby can be too. ;)**


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